The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has wasted millions of pounds on a botched computer system according to documents leaked to the press. The recruitment partnering project was a £1.3bn scheme intended to enable the army to recruit online. However it is almost two years behind schedule and will not be fully operational until April 2015 if ever.

So fair more than £15.5million has been spent on the system but it is so rubbish that defence secretary Philip Hammond is considering spending nearly £50m on a new solution. According to Gartner, the army's recruitment wing picked the wrong bidder to build the IT system after failing in 2011 to challenge an MoD policy that favoured the less suitable of two competing offers. The project management team was inexperienced and under-resourced and the army failed to take charge when delays started and put in a suitable contingency plan.

Now Hammond has been told to pay Capita, the MoD's partner in the project, £47.7m to build a new IT platform. Vernon Coaker, the shadow defence secretary, issued a statement saying that the leaked report points to the latest series of catastrophic failures at the Ministry of Defence on David Cameron's watch.

It said that the opposition warned that the government was taking risks with Britain's security by not fixing the reserve recruitment crisis before reducing numbers in the regular army. The opposition was not particularly happy that Capita was going to get the job as it had worries about its performance.

John Carmack says that the promised mode tools for Rage are still coming. Carmack isn’t pulling any punches when he says, “I think we made poor decisions on this all year.” Originally, the tools were supposed to ship alongside the game when it was released in October 2011.

Carmack admits that work on the BFG Edition of Doom III did take some time to complete and this was the same window that could have gone to finishing the Mod Tools for Rage. As for what is next for Rage, it is hard to say.

While success has eluded the title somewhat, that does not mean it is over for the title. We are doubtful that you will see any additional DLC or add-ons for Rage, as sources tell us that id is working the new project and everyone is working on that.

Blizzard has apparently decided that the upcoming release of Diablo III will not be supporting any kind of mods or modding. This is simply because Blizzard does not want modding and they have other goals in mind for the title.

The most important goal for the title is that they want the title to provide a safe and secure experience for players. With this goal in mind, modding had to go because the game will require a connection to the Internet to play.

According to Blizzard, they never really intended for previous Diablo titles to be modded or to support modding, but people just figured out a way to do it and then they made it happen. It was not something that the company endorsed.

Diablo III is on track for a release in early 2012, and it is assumed with the comments from Blizcon that a console version is coming; but it will likely arrive after the PC and Mac releases of the game.

The “first of its kind” trial of bloke for modifying Xbox 360 consoles to play pirated games has opened in Southern California.

Matthew Crippen is charged with two counts of violating the anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA. He faces a maximum three years in prison if convicted. His case had been based on “fair use” but the 28-year-old Crippen was told by the Judge that he could not raise that as a defense.

Other evidence, such as the admissibility of a covert video recording of Crippen allegedly performing the modification is yet to be ruled on. The defense claims that the two-minute video has been edited and was unlawfully produced in Crippen’s Anaheim house without his consent in violation of California privacy law.

Crippen’s attorney has been unable to review the full recording made by the investigator, who claims to have lost it in a computer crash. As a result, only the edited version would go before the jury.

It is not clear if hardware-hacking guru Andrew “Bunnie” Huang, who is prepared to testify for the defense that installing a mod chip does not circumvent a copy-control mechanism within the meaning of the DMCA will be allowed to testify either.

The government maintains that the testimony of Huang, who wrote a book on Xbox hacking, is irrelevant.

Skype's Skype for Android app is being blocked from being used over most US 3G networks, except Verizon's forcing American Android to use it via Wi-Fi.

However a hacker named Matt, AKA "xeudoxus" has posted a modified version of the app on Droid Forums. Matt has promised more hacks to unlock other restricted Android apps including Blackboard Mobile Learn, which was locked to Sprint, and SprintTV also locked to Sprint.

The Skype for Android hack is a sideload program which means users don't have to get into the root of their phone. Using the Android Central Sideload Wonder Machine you do not void the phone's warranty installing the hack.

The Sideloader is a Windows application that lets you load apps into your phone from your PC via a USB cable. It can be used with any Android device, on any carrier, without the Android SDK installed.

Still it means that Skype can finally work on Android phones in the US, although this will certainly miff a lot of the telcos.

Sony isn’t the only one that is on the offensive in taking it to those that hack their products. Nintendo has been waging a war for some time against those who are hacking the Wii and DSi with user modifications and flash carts.

Nintendo has released new firmware to combat these problems on both the Wii and DSi platforms. The new firmware, which arrived earlier this week, is said to break a number of popular DSi flash cartridges that are used to play pirated copies of DSi games.

In addition, the Wii received firmware that can remove unauthorized firmware or modifications. The Wii update warns that the new firmware can cause your console to no longer work after the firmware update.

Reports from the field say the users can refuse to accept the updated firmware, but it is likely that Nintendo will move to make the new firmware a requirement for new titles released; this means that if you are not running the new firmware you will not be able to play the latest titles.

Of course, the Nintendo community is already trying to find a solution in this never-ending game of cat and mouse.